Oliver Rossetti
Candidate No. 6164
------ Equipment ------
Camcorder - We used this to film all our music video footage from filming Tom singing to the narrative of the song. From previous experience I knew how to use a camcorder however during this time of filming, I learnt a great deal about lighting as I wanted to make sure this reflected the mood of the male character but also was bright enough to see the action that's going on in the shot.
Camera - We used Tom's 14.1 mega-pixel 'Casio' camera to take all the location shots and the stop motion pictures. This was used as I knew we needed a up-to-date large mega-pixel camera so that when the pictures are uploaded on the film and enlarged, the quality would not deteriorate. As a bonus of using this camera, it also had a high-definition (HD) setting which we used mainly for the ancillary products as they needed to be perfect quality as the consumer would be constantly hit with this image, however the downside to this is that it takes up twice the file space that a standard definition (SD) photo takes up.
Phone Camera - For the original location shots for our magazine advert I used my phone camera as it was the only camera we had on the day we went up to the North Downs, Surrey. However we had the choice of either Lucy's phone camera or mine but we used mine as it is a cybershot, 5 mega pixel camera which would be suitable to pick up the colours of the setting sun.
Tripod - This was used to stabilise the camcorder when filming and also we rested the camera on it so that we got a clear, crisp image without any blurring of the image. This significantly contributed to our music video as we all know that watching a blurry, tilted image is no fun!
iMac - This is likely the most used piece of equipment that I have used over the time we have been creating this music video and subsequent ancillary products.This has been used for research such as watching music videos and analysing them; updating this blog but more importantly, hours of editing! I have learnt many things this time around when using the iMac, not only in relation to editing but also the way the Operating System (OS) works such as importing and exporting files. In terms of editing, I have learnt how to split the canvas screen into four or more different clips and have learnt more effects, for instance the 'vingitime' visual effect and also using the mask tool to create a white flash in between the three beginning clips.
Windows XP Computer - A Windows PC has also been particularly useful in e-mailing and editing photos using programs like 'Serif Photo Plus X2' and 'Adobe Photoshop'. We have also created our album cover and magazine advert through using the PC as there were far more developed programs that we could use which you also had the capability to transfer edited photos or designs over between one program and another. E.g Picture edited in 'Adobe Photoshop' could then be saved and taken over easily to Microsoft Publisher.------ Software ------
Paint - This was used to help edit our magazine advert picture as we needed to draw thick black lines to help give the illusion that the picture has been torn up. We originally were going to print off the picture and physically tear it up and scan it back in. However this became a problem as the scanner could not pick up the super-imposed sunset colours on the sky and subsequently lost its whole impact and meaning. Therefore 'Paint' helped us counter this issue and despite its basic and simple functions, it worked very well.
Adobe Photoshop - Much like above Lucy and I came into difficulties with this program as it was on a limited number of computers at college but also that we both did not have much experience in using 'Adobe Photoshop'. Despite this, with some practise I learnt a lot about gradients and the different effects you can put onto photos and not the typical chrome black and white effect. We used this for both our magazine advert and our album cover; creating the sunset sky effect and part of the compass that goes on the inside, right cover of the album case. This software turned out to be one of the most important pieces of software that we used as we could not have got the right meaning over to our target audience without layering the photos and adding effects. 
Serif PhotoPlus X2 - In conjunction with Photoshop, this also played a big part in the creation of our magazine advert through editing our photo. The program aided in the creation of the 'torn' pieces of the photo, giving the correct effect and meaning to the photo that we wanted to give out. I had never used this program before and nor had I seen it til it came to creating our ancillary products. As you can expect, I learnt a number of different aspects about the program and how to use it, however in spite of this, it was also not the most easiest of photo editing programs that I have used. This became particularly apparent when it came to saving our photo and it only allowed it to save as a '.spp' file, meaning I had to use an online file converter to save it as a '.jpeg'. In my honest opinion, I felt by the end of using this program, 'Adobe Photoshop' could do around the same things as this program could and it is not necessary to use 'Serif PhotoPlus X2' anytime in the near future.
YouTube - Predominately this was used to watch and analysis other music videos that have been produced by their respected record labels, 'Universal', 'EMI Records', '20th Century Records' etc. In my eyes, I find this one of the most important sites on the Internet today as if it wasn't for YouTube, you could not watch tutorials such as a particular one that I watched about the best way to create a split screen 4-ways in our music video which I had taught myself but wanted to check that it was the easiest method. However more importantly, I could not have done much research without watching previous genres of music videos, for instance: Narrative, Spectacle, Country, Rock etc. 
Blogger - As you can probably realise, you are reading our blog through the servers of 'Blogger'. This website has likely been the most used Internet site that I have used while producing our music video as I have been documenting the whole process that I and my group have been going through whilst also recording down research and data that we could look back on. In terms of the target audience, we manipulated our music video, to a certain extent, to our target audience's preferences of music video genre conventions.
Slideshare - Over the course of this blog you will have noticed I have embedded a few PowerPoint presentations into certain posts, for instance how Robbie Williams has changed over the years. I have done this through using the Internet site: 'Slideshare'. This has become very useful as it has meant that not only can I embed PowerPoint presentations into posts but also I learnt that by clicking onto the authors name, it has meant that the user can find the other related presentations to this blog, helping the user navigate with ease.
Microsoft Word - This was the program that most people commonly use to type up documents and this was the same program that I used for typing up research and also occasionally editing/cropping a photo as sometimes it is easier to use 'Word' than to open up a photo editing program to simply crop a photo, therefore making 'Word' an ideal tool than can be applied to most basic jobs. 
Microsoft Publisher - I mainly used this program to layout the magazine advert, using other tools such as 'Adobe Photoshop' to edit the main photo but then saving it and importing it into 'Publisher'. As I already knew how to use 'Publisher', it made the process of creating our magazine advert far quicker, meaning we had more time to change our design idea after we had created it than if we had to learn a completely new piece of software, taking even longer; potentially not giving us any time to play around with our design afterwards.
Final Cut Express - Without a doubt, this editing software was the most used program in the making of our music video. I was the editor of our group and working it out, I probably spent over 24hours editing our music video as I feel I am one of types of people who you call, a perfectionist. As you will have read over the blog you will have realised how the editing was broken down into 2 stages, initial editing followed by fine detail/perfection editing; which was when I wanted to correct the areas that our audience feedback reported back saying that they were not sure about it. I learnt a great deal of new effects and new ways to express the same clip, for instance when clip after clip layers itself upon the last - all telling how the female character has chosen her new man over him - seeing this from many different angles and making it interesting for the audience. 
iMovie HD - This was the secondary editing tool that I used while editing the music video. I used this to first upload the stop motion pictures so that I could edit them and put them back into order and then secondly to take any still freeze frames as I found this easier than doing it on 'Final Cut Express'. However, this was before learning about the 'Preview' program and being about to 'grab' a selection/photo.
GIMP - This is another photo editing program but with a difference, you are able to easily design and create pictures from scratch or from a basic frame. This was predominately used to create the Compass for the inside, right cover of the album whilst also being used now and again for the other images of the album cover.
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Picsca 3 - Similar to above, this was also used to create and develop our album cover, however, this is more of a photo manipulation software rather than pure photo editing. You can probably spot that the inside left cover of the album took a great deal of work with this program; placing the pictures all around the edge with writing in the middle. The advantage of using this piece of software is that it would have taken 3 times as long if you were to do the same but using 'Adobe Photoshop' or 'Microsoft Publisher'.
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